Until next time…

Last week, Facebook included a set of new features that allow websites like Pandora access some of your personal information and use it to personalize your experience with their products. For example, Pandora will be now able to  recommend streaming music stations based on artists you’ve Liked on Facebook.

However, for those of you who are concern about privacy there is an option called “Instant Personalization” which is inside of Facebook’ privacy setting pages that would allow you to have some control about this.

There are two options: you can either turn Instant Personalization off at Facebook or you can opt out at individual websites.

Preventing Friends from Sharing Your Information

It is important to know that your friends can sometimes share your information from their own profiles with websites even though this is turned off. To change this you can go to “Applications and Websites” and click “Edit Settings”- “What your friends can share about you”.

It’s nice to be able to choose exactly what you want to share or not. Even though Facebook frequently changes its privacy policies it is good to know you can still have a “say” when it comes to your privacy.

1. Pringles

Pringles Facebook Fan Page characterizes mainly for the use of video. They have acknowledged that their audience reacts well to comedy and they have given their fans the opportunity to spread the Pringles message to their friends. Furthermore, they engaged their fans via reviews, discussions, and interactive games.

2. Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola Facebook Fan Page is committed to user participation. First, Coke shows content in their main page Wall feed by default which means that the page is ruled by user-generated content, no matter if it is good or bad.

Second, Coke focuses in creating photo albums showing off the product, employees at the company, photos of Coke fans and pictures of Coke products from all around the world.

Finally, Coke is truly devoted to their fans on Facebook. An example of this is how the fan page was developed. The page was originally created by two fans who loved Coke. Rather than trying to buy it or create another “official” page, they rewarded the two fans and worked with them to continue building the page and representing the brand.

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The Starbucks Facebook Fan Page  has achieved a great number of engaged active fans by creating great videos and content. But what differentiates Starbucks from other brands on Facebook is its use of status updates which provide a two-way communication between them and their fans.

They provide fun and interesting content. Their updates share videos and blog posts about all aspects of coffe. This has led to a very engaged fan base, with every update receiving thousands of comments.

4. Redbull

The Red Bull Facebook Fan Page provides their fans with content that encourages them to interact and connect with the Red Bull brand. The main characteristic is the incorporation of Twitter into their Facebook fan page. They have aggregated tweets from sponsored athletes like snowboarder Shaun White and included them directly in their Facebook Fan Page.

Red Bull definitely knows its audience and understands that the best way to connect with them on Facebook is with humor, fun, and by being creative.

After seeing these brands on Facebook I can see that brands which have engaged customers are those that  have creative content, two-way communication, videos and images, and a fun and casual tone. One key element of a successful Facebook Fan Page is that a company has to know its audience and provide quality regular content encouraging discussion and engagement among fans.

If you have some interesting examples of Facebook Brand Fan Pages, please feel free to share them.

I found an article on Inc.com that talked about companies that were using Chatroulette to advertise their products. I am not sure how this exactly works or if it works for all products but I guess we have to know what is going on out there and how companies are using these new tools to communicate with their customers.

For example, Travelocity has entered the Chatroulette world with their iconic Roaming Gnome which appears  holding a variety of signs throughout the day with messages such as “This would be better if we were in Rio.”  The goal is to motivate video chatters to step away from their webcams and take vacations.

source: http://mashable.com/2010/03/31/travelocity-gnome-chatroulette/

It would be interesting if we could see some results from this campaign and if in fact it generated more sales due to its pressence on Chatroulette.

The service is very straight forward. This is how it works:

• First, a restaurant pays an installation fee of about $1,000 but it can be free for long-term subscribers.
• Second, customers visiting the restaurant opt into the service when they arrive by giving the hostess their cell phone numbers.

While this service can’t change how long you wait, it does allow you to leave the restaurant and wait wherever you want without worrying of loosing your table. On the other hand, the service doesn’t seem to me to be such a big idea because you still have to wait…but perhaps we are seeing such technologically advances nowadays that a little improvement is not enough.  Another pitfall might be the privacy convern of giving away your cellphone number. But I think it is important to acknowledge the fact that restaurants and businesses in general are worrying about the customer experience. In this case, the experience begins waiting for a table.

Textaurant is not the only company that is trying to help customers avoid frustrating lines. Startups like QLess, FreshTxt and MobileWait all use web-to-text applications to do something similar.

One of the main focuses of Radian6 is to monitor, analyze and track customers’ conversations.

First, she stressed the importance of comparing which types of social media are the best traffic sources for your product/service. It does not matter how many followers you have on Twitter or how many fans you have on Facebook what matters is how engaged those customers are with your brand.

Second, she gave some metrics: 

Awareness metrics:

• Potential reach (followers)
• Mentions/ time period
• Inbound links
• Share of conversation
• Subscribers to content
• Referral ratio and recommendation ratio
• Brand recognition (benchmarking before and after implementing social media)
• Brand-specific searches
• Sentiment trends
• Content resonance

Content metrics:

• Views
• Comments/Feedback
• Clicks/Downloads
• Length of visits
• Registration/Subscriptions
• Shares
• Inbound links
• Conversations

Engagement metrics:

• Comments
• Thread size
• Time with content
• Content downloads
• Subscriptions
• Content sharing
• Suggestions/ Feedback
• Recommendations

Sales metrics

• Lead volume
• Cost per lead
• Lead value
• Conversion rate
• Referrals
• Retention rate
• Average transaction (account) value
• Sales value per fan/follower

I believe that as marketers we have to acknowledge the fact that the Web 2.0 gives us a full range of tools we can use to spread the message. Just like e-mail can help you achieve your company’s goals Facebook can do that too. It is important to develop the right metrics to evaluate your marketing campaigns and to better allocate marketing budgets.

Radian6 is a service which provides companies with a platform to listen, measure and engage with its customers across the entire social web.

This article talked about a report developed by a market research company called Morspace. It said that retailers who were actively involved in marketing their products and/or services on Facebook might get a competitive advantage over their competition in terms of product recommendations. Nowadays consumers are more likely to offer and receive product recommendations online than before. There has being a change in the purchasing-decision process from asking family and friends for word-of-mouth to discuss options via social-networking sites like Facebook.  Also, if a company knows that its target audience is on Facebook it could be an effective tool to directly communicate with this segment.  And by knowing what customers want retailers can offer them product information and discounts according to their needs to increase sales and create viral product buzz among Facebook consumers.

The study also showed that some of the reasons consumers join a Facebook fan page are: “To let my friends know what products I support,” (41 percent) and “To receive coupons and discount offers,” (37 percent). More than 36 percent of consumers consider Facebook to be a useful tool for researching products. Nearly 68 percent of consumers say that a “positive referral from a Facebook friend makes them more likely to buy a specific product or visit a certain retailer.”

I would suggest that before jumping into Facebook or other digital channels companies evaluate where there customers are. If its target market’s characteristics and behavior meet Facebook features then it is definitely a media channel to take into account. Facebook could be an important tool to know what your customers are doing and interpret what they are saying-mining online discussions and asking online feedback.

The Lookbook by GAP

Another interactive ad I found was one from Nikon displayed at a Seoul subway station which had life-like images of paparazzi trying to take the best celebrity picture.  When people passed by the ad flashing camera lights were set off.  Then people could follow the red carpet all the way out of the station and into a mall – directly into the store where they could find and purchase the new D700.

D700 by Nikon

One ad that surprised me was one that tried to get people to join the health club chain, Fitness First. This ad was displayed at a Rotterdam bus stop featuring people’s body weight in bright lights while they were waiting the bus. Personally, this ad goes a little too far to try to get people to go to the gym because most women do not feel comfortable with their body weight so I imagine they would not be comfortable especially if their body weight suddenly appeared while waiting the bus and everyone else around could see it.

Fitness First

After seeing a couple of examples I found that offline interactive ads were more interesting than online interactive ads. If you have other examples especially for online ads please share them!

Following up companies that provide location-based services to people and businesses, I found an article about Foursquare at Mashable.com that said how Foursquare is now enabling people to follow celebrities. At first I thought that this was a little strange because I was picturing celebrities like Brad Pitt telling where they were but then I realized that the article referred to celebrities from shows such as the Jersey Shore, the Hills, among others. I guess it makes sense for these “reality-show celebrities” then.

Foursquare has developed marketing deals with MTV and VH1 that include a new Foursquare feature that allows users to follow people without a reciprocal friendship. So, if for some reason you want to follow Jersey Shore’s DJ Pauly D, you can see where he is checking in and follow him.

Also, MTV and VH1 fans can earn special badges on Foursquare. And celebrities can also leave tips about their favorite venues. I guess this will benefit somes businesses and also celebrities. 

It is interesting to see how Foursquare is creating new features to keep its audience engage especially if they recently added almost 100,000 users in 10 days.

Personally, I won’t be following these “celebrities” anytime soon…would you?